St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-01-29

ana tnOu SndlL De SaVcQ, OF, DellcFc Ill Iuo
Synod of bort and thou shalt be saved; or,
believe in the Thirty-nine Articles and
thou shalt be saved9 A man may be Or
thodox and go to hell or orthodox and go
to Heaven. The man who IN the deep af-
lection of his heart accepts Christ is saved,
and the man who does not accept Him Is
lost.
I believe in both the Heidelberg and
Westminster catechism, and wish you all
did, but you may believe in nothing they
contain except the one idea that Christ
came to save sinners, and that you are one
of them, and you are instantly rescued. 1t
you can come in on the grand old ship, l
would rather have you get aboard, but II
sou can find only piece of wood as long
as the human body, or piece as WIDE IS
the outspread human arms, and either OF
them is a piece of the cross, come in on
that piece. Tens of thousands of people
are to-day kept out Of the Kingdom of God
because they can not believe every thing.
I am talking with a man thoughtful
about his soul, who has lately travelled
through New England and passed the night
at Andover. He says to me: II can not
believe that in this life destiny is irrevo-
cably fixed; think there will be another
opportunity of repentance after DEATH"
l say to him: 'My brother, what has that
to do with yous Don't you realize that the
man who waits for another chance after
death, when he has good chance before
death, is stark fool? Had not you better
take the plank that is thrown to you now
and head for shore rather than wait for
plank that may by invisible hands be
thrown to you after you are deads Do as
you please, but as for myself, with pardon
for all my sins offered me now and all the
joys Of time and eternity offered me
now, I instantly take them rather than run
the risk of such other chance as wise men
think they can peel off or twist out of
a Scripture passage that has for all the
Christian centuries been interpreted an
other way.
You say: II do not like Princeton the
ology or Andover theology" l do not ask
you on board either of the great men-of-
war, their portfolios filled with great siege
guns of ecclesiastical battle. But do ask
you to take the one plank of the Gospel
that you do believe in and strike out for
the pearl-strung beach of Heaven.
Says some other man: II would attend
to religion if I was quite sure about the
doctrine of election and free agency, but
that mixes me all up" Those things used
to bother me, but have no more perplex-
ity about them. for | say to myself: If I
love Christ and live good, honest, useful
life. | am elected to be saved; and if I do
not love Christ and live a bad life will be
damned, and all the theological seminaries
of the universe can not II AXE it any differ
emit" / doundered along while in the sea
of sin and doubt, and it was as rough as
the Mediterranean on the fourteenth night
I saw there was mercy for sinner, and
that plank took and have been warm
ing myself by the bright fire on the shore
for three decades.
While am talking to another man about
his soul he tells me: II do not become
Christian because do not believe there is
any hell at al.'' All! don't you? Do all
the people, of all beliefs and no belief at all,
of good morals and bad morals, go straight
to happy Heaven? Do the holy and the
debauched have the same destinationss At
midnight, in hallway, the owner of
house and a burglar meet each other, and
they both fire, and both are wounded, but
the burglar dies in five minutes and the
owner Of the house lives week after. Will
the burglar be at the gate of Heaven
waiting when the house-oWner comes in?
Will the debauche and the ibertine go
right in among the families of Heavena I
wonder if Herod is playing on the banks
of the River of Life with the children he
massacred. wonder if Charles Guiteau
and John Wilkes Booth are up there shoot
ing at mark. do not now controvert it,
must say for such miserable
Heavcs [ have no admiration. But the
Bible dcxs not say: ''Believe in perdition
and be saved''
Because all are saved, according to your
theory, that ought not to keep you from
loving and serving Christ. Do not refuse
to come ashore because all the others, &C
cordlng to your theory, are going to get
ashore. You may have different theory
about chemistry, about astronomy, about
the atmosphere, from that which others
adopt, but you are not therefore hindered
from action. Because your theory of light
is different from others, you do not refuse
TO open your eyes; because your theory of
air is different, you do not refuse to
breathe; because your theory about the
stellar system is different, you do not re-
fuse TO acknowledge the north star. Why
should the fact that your theological the
ories are different hinder you from acting
Upon what you know9 If you have not a
whole ship fashioned in the theological drv
locks to bring you to wharfage, you have
It least a plank. "Some on broken pieces
If the ship"
"But I do not believe in revivalsw Then |
20 to your room, and all alone with your |
loor locked give your heart to God and |
DIN some church where the thermometer
lever gets higher than fifty in the shade.
But do not believe in baptism!" Come
n without it and settle that matter after
ward. "But there are so many inconsist-
mt Christiansn' Then come in and show
hem by good example how professors
'ught to act. sBut don't believe in the
lid Testamentl'' Then come in on the
Jew. "But don't like the Book of Ro-
nansr' Then come In on Matthew or
luke. Refusing to come to Christ, whom
'ou admit to be the Saviour of the lost, be.
ause you can not admit other things, you
re like man out there in that Mediter-
anean tempest and tossed in the Melita
reakers, refusing to come ashore until he
ON no mic IF ho